Apocalypse Cult

A dark take on the cult, an Apocalypse Cult tends to crop up in fiction wherever Cosmic Horror Story elements are present, with the members actively seeking to bring about the end of the world. There are several flavors of Apocalypse Cult, but most seek to awaken or make possible the return of some god of destruction to destroy the world and "make it anew".

They will often be seen conducting arcane rituals of untold horrors and believe they will be rewarded with the equivalent of paradise for their service. As they are often a form of Religion of Evil, they tend to be practitioners of The Dark Arts. Human sacrifices, necromancers, zombies and other forms of undead are optional but often seen among their ranks.

Examples:

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

In the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. 'verse, there are a large number of cults and secret societies--Project Ragna Rok, the Oannes Society, and the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, to name a few--hoping the trigger the apocalypse. Most of them are operating under the logic that the world is going to end anyway, but if they're the ones who pull the trigger, they'll at least have some measure of control over the destruction.

In Tom Robbins's Skinny Legs And All, Reverend Buddy Winkler is working with terrorists who plan to bomb The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, so that the Third Temple can be built.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]

Friendship is Witchcraft has an ongoing subplot involving Fluttershy leading a cult that worships The Smooze, and intends to summon him to destroy Equestria.

Hackshaw: A world of the unburied dead, and a sky dark with ashes. A blasted, maimed planet.

Ghost Busters. In the Back Story, Ivo Shandor's Gozer worshippers conducted rituals intended to bring about the end of the world.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]

In Cold Copper Tears, the cult of the Devastator aims to release a world-destroying dark god from its prison. Lampshaded and deconstructed by the Dead Man, who points out that, subconsciously, the cultists don't really want to end the world, they're just morbid and petty enough to get a charge out of thinking they can.

Humanx Commonwealth series: A cult called the Order of Null appears in Flinx's Folly and later novels. They have learned of the approach of the galaxy-devouring Great Evil, and see it as their role to remove any obstacles to its coming. This includes Flinx himself, who is the Chosen One fated to destroy it. It is later revealed that they are abetted by none other than Flinx's archnemesis, Mahnahmi, a powerful telepath and an embittered nihilist.

In Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy, the Illuminati Prime (the five most powerful people in the world) are actively seeking to Immanetize the Eschaton - ie, bring about the apocalypse - to make themselves immortal and provide a massive blood sacrifice to their Elder Brothers and Sisters, the Lloigr of Cthulu.

China Mieville's novel Kraken has some Lovecraftian doomsday cultists as among the good guys.

Neil Gaiman's story Shoggoths Old Peculiar has an (initially) Unfazed Everyman American tourist who visits the picturesque English town of Innsmouth and converses in a pub with the friendly Cthulhu-worshipers who live there. He ends up with a bad hangover and a "feeling of nameless dread" (TM).

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]

Played for Laughs in Parks and Recreation with the "Reasonablists", who don't make any effort in ushering in their Destroyer God, Zorp. They just often make rather incorrect predictions on when the world will end and hold "End Of The World" gatherings.

In Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, the retirement-home satanists who are trying to capture the Book of Pure Evil want to make Todd into the Pure Evil One who will destroy the world.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. The Lords of the Silver Twilight try to raise the island of R'lyeh to the surface and free Cthulhu so he can take over (and destroy) the world.

Masks of Nyarlathotep. Cult groups controlled by Nyarlathotep himself try to perform a ritual that will let hordes of Mythos monsters into the world to destroy mankind.

The Fungi from Yuggoth. The Brotherhood of the Beast tries to cause a worldwide catastrophe by arranging for terrorist attacks, the summoning of gigantic dholes and the activation of a giant monster in Egypt, all on the Day of the Beast.

The Dungeons & Dragons 4E "Points of Light" setting prominently features the Cult of Orcus, which is bent upon summoning the Prince of Undeath and thereby ending civilization as we know it. This is especially true of certain low-level pre-made campaigns such as "Keep On The Shadowfell."

In Warhammer Forty Thousand we have the Genestealer cults, who prepare the planet for the Tyranid invasion. Their apocaplypse involves the Tyranids devouring anything that offers resistance, then turning everything alive on the planet (including the Tyranid forces and surviving Genestealers) into soup so it can be absorbed by the hive fleet.

In Tabletop Games: The DungeonsAndDragons 4E "Points of Light" setting prominently features the Cult of Orcus, which is bent upon summoning the Prince of Undeath and thereby ending civilization as we know it. This is especially true of certain low-level pre-made campaigns such as "Keep On The Shadowfell."

Also from Warhammer 40 K are Genestealer cults, who prepare the planet for Tyranid invasion. Their apocaplypse involves the Tyranids devouring anything that offers resistance, then turning everything alive on the planet (including the Tyranid forces and surviving Genestealers) into soup so it can be absorbed by the hive fleet.

^^^ While all of the groups you mention may have been crazy, in order for them to qualify for this trope they would have to have been actively trying to cause an apocalypse. As far as I know none of them were. In fact I can't think of any Real Life cult which has (or had) this objective.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. The Lords of the Silver Twilight try to raise the island of R'lyeh to the surface and free Cthulhu so he can take over (and destroy) the world.

Masks of Nyarlathotep. Cult groups controlled by Nyarlathotep himself try to perform a ritual that will let hordes of Mythos monsters into the world to destroy mankind.

The Fungi from Yuggoth. The Brotherhood of the Beast tries to cause a worldwide catastrophe by arranging for terrorist attacks, the summoning of gigantic dholes and the activation of a giant monster in Egypt, all on the Day of the Beast.

In Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy, the Illuminati Prime (the five most powerful people in the world) are actively seeking to Immanetize the Eschaton - ie, bring about the apocalypse - to make themselves immortal and provide a massive blood sacrifice to their Elder Brothers and Sisters, the Lloigr of Cthulu.

In the Animorphs finale The Beginning, two years after the Yeerk defeat various anti-alien terrorist groups have cropped up and started attacking Andalite tourists and the like. According to Jake, some of the worst are cults that think the presence of aliens on Earth is staving off a long-awaited apocalypse. (Which raises the question of where they were a few books ago when the Yeerks were blasting the living daylights out of California...)

The requirement for an "evil god" is perhaps unnecessary, as an Apocalypse might generally be seen as a bad thing...

1954 science-fiction short story by Arthur C Clarke "The Nine Billion Names of God".

A group of Tibetan monks are engaged in a project to list the names of God. They believe that this is the essential purpose of creation. Once this purpose has been achieved, everything will end.

They've already been doing this by hand for 300 years and anticipate a further 15,000 years to complete the job. Sensibly, their Abbot decides to bring in a computer to speed things up a bit.

Two Western experts come to set up the computer, and the project is greatly accelerated. They decide to leave before things are completed, as they anticipate that the monks will be upset if nothing happens...

As they reach the airstrip for their flight home they notice "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."

In Cold Copper Tears, the cult of the Devastator aims to release a world-destroying dark god from its prison. Lampshaded and deconstructed by the Dead Man, who points out that, subconsciously, the cultists don't really want to end the world, they're just morbid and petty enough to get a charge out of thinking they can.

^Dunno about the other major religions, but see Artistic License Religion and Artistic License Traditional Christianity. Certainly, there are some Christians who are trying to bring in the apocalypse, but they haven't read the Bible very well: Matthew 24:36 states that we will not know when the Second Coming is to happen. It'll happen on God's time, not ours.

None of the mainstream religions actively seek to bring about the end of the world. Splinter sects and cults may, but given the fact that of the first six response, 2 were digs at Christianity and 2 were responses to those digs, the indications are strong that Real Life examples will quickly become a nest of religion-bashing. Invoking the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement and making this a No Real Life Examples Please page from the start will save a lot of grief and arguing later on. I can think of only one cult that actively tried to jumpstart the Apocalypse: Aum Shinrikyo, the ones who planted the Sarin in Japan's subways in 1995

I also agree with @/SHRINKWRAPPED that the god doesn't necessarily have to be evil itself.

Humanx Commonwealth series: A cult called the Order of Null appears in Flinx's Folly and later novels. They have learned of the approach of the galaxy-devouring Great Evil, and see it as their role to remove any obstacles to its coming. This includes Flinx himself, who is the Chosen One fated to destroy it. It is later revealed that they are abetted by none other than Flinx's archnemesis, Mahnahmi, a powerful telepath and an embittered nihilist.

Is this confined to cults where the followers know they're bringing about the end of the world, or does it include cults where the followers think they're going to get something else (power, immortality, whatever) but the leader is fooling them? Or even where nobody in the cult realizes that reaching their goal will end the world?

^What fun? The very first comment here was a dig at Christianity. Can't you really see why real life examples might be a bad idea?
Also, you need to elaborate more on these examples. Two words linking to a work isn't enough.

Neil Gaiman's story "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" has an (initially) Unfazed Everyman American tourist who visits the picturesque English town of Innsmouth and converses in a pub with the friendly Cthulhu-worshipers who live there. He ends up with a bad hangover and a "feeling of nameless dread" (TM).

China Mieville's novel Kraken has some Lovecraftian doomsday cultists as among the good guys.

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